Finding a Great Executive Coach

How do you find a great exec­u­tive coach — the right coach — for you and your com­pa­ny? 

Over many, many years, I’ve met some of the most inter­est­ing styles and flavours of coach­es. Through the coach­ing com­mu­ni­ty and, cou­pled with my own inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence over 25 years, here’s what I’ve learned. It starts with being clear about your needs, so let’s first talk about the dif­fer­ence between a coach, a con­sul­tant and a men­tor. Each one has their place but they’re quite different.

• A con­sul­tant is an expert in a spe­cif­ic area who works on a time-based project and will give you data and/​or answers and recommendations.
• A men­tor is some­one who’s been there, done that and can advise you.
• A coach uses a frame­work to ask the right ques­tions — rather than giv­ing you answers — facil­i­tate con­ver­sa­tions, and guide peo­ple to come to the right solu­tions for them.

An exec­u­tive coach is a thought part­ner you build a rela­tion­ship with to help you to get clear­er and become more effec­tive as a leader.

He or she chal­lenges you and brings you to bet­ter insights — and ide­al­ly bet­ter exe­cu­tion of those insights.

In my world, we coach CEOs or senior exec­u­tives one-on-one, and facil­i­tate strate­gic plan­ning ses­sions for companies.

The jour­ney of lead­er­ship isn’t about the mon­ey, the cor­ner office or telling every­one what to do. It’s help­ing all of those around you to rein­vent them­selves and become bet­ter lead­ers. Even if you’re a man­ag­er and not the CEO, you still don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly want to be told what to do. You want to be helped to make the right decision.

And that’s what a great coach does.

A lot of peo­ple in my field don’t keep their clients for a long time because they have too much opin­ion and answer dis­pens­ing. And that’s not what a lot of real­ly suc­cess­ful peo­ple are hap­py to hear. They want perspective.

I’ve had an amaz­ing men­tor since my ear­ly 20s. Joff Grohne is an awe­some guy who built a large design com­pa­ny called Karo Design and, I tell you, that guy would nev­er give me an opin­ion. He’d always would ask me a ques­tion or bring out a frame­work. He was a men­tor, who actu­al­ly was an out­stand­ing coach.

Are you coachable?

As a leader, are you open to new or dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives — to chang­ing how you think and how you oper­ate as a leader?

Are you will­ing to do learn and to do dif­fi­cult things?

Some­times it’s about you and some­times it’s about the skill of the coach know­ing how to get the best out of you — and that’s why coach­es need to spend so much time on their own learn­ing and growth. It’s about know­ing h26 to get the best out of dif­fer­ent peo­ple in dif­fer­ent circumstances.

When a CEOs calls, I test to see if they are coach­able because if they are not, they’re going to waste their mon­ey, and nei­ther of us is going to feel good about it.

I once worked with a client who, it turned out, was­n’t coach­able enough, and wasn’t will­ing to deal with some of the nit­ty grit­ty of his busi­ness. And that’s his pre­rog­a­tive. But noth­ing was chang­ing, and he wasn’t get­ting val­ue from me, so we talked about it and agreed some­one or some­thing else would be a bet­ter fit.

Qual­i­ties of a Great Exec­u­tive Coach

When I’m look­ing at coach­es to bring onto our team or to rec­om­mend to oth­ers, I look for peo­ple with expe­ri­ence and spe­cif­ic, prop­er coach­ing train­ing. They must also be com­mit­ted — obsessed — with real­ly tru­ly help­ing and hav­ing an impact, and be pro­fes­sion­al stu­dents, always study­ing and improv­ing their skills.

A great coach has under­stand­ing and great pat­tern recog­ni­tion through many expe­ri­ences. For exam­ple, a client may do a strate­gic plan­ning ses­sion once a quar­ter but a coach who has done it many, many times with many, many clients brings that expe­ri­ence with them.

Those who are real­ly suc­cess­ful have put in Mal­colm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours – I think I’m clos­er to 30,000! – know how to ask the right dis­cov­ery ques­tions to fig­ure out what’s real­ly going on, and to get to the root of the prob­lem or the core of an oppor­tu­ni­ty. We don’t ask lead­ing ques­tions. Our job is not is not to prove that you’re right, our job is to make you better.

The Right Fit

Like any per­son­al rela­tion­ship, you want to pick the right part­ner — a good fit for both the leader and the coach.

As a exec­u­tive coach con­sid­er­ing a client, I ask myself:

• Do I like this per­son? Do our val­ues fit?
• Do I believe in them? Does he/​she have the capa­bil­i­ty and desire to be a Lev­el 5 leader?
• Can I stand behind and be proud to work with them?
• Would I be proud to intro­duce them to my oth­er clients to be part of a com­mu­ni­ty of CEOs?
• What do they want from their business?
• Can I become a great invest­ment for them ver­sus just an expense?
• Will this oppor­tu­ni­ty chal­lenge and help me learn and grow?

We look for lead­ers who want to build an endur­ing busi­ness and a great rela­tion­ship. If their vision is some­thing else, then anoth­er coach could be a bet­ter fit.

A client should ask:

• Why are they a coach? What are they pas­sion­ate about?
• How much time do they invest in learn­ing and growth? Do they have a coach?
• Do they have the expe­ri­ence to mul­ti­ply my capa­bil­i­ty and effectiveness?
  • Are they a 14X coach that has been there and done that 14 times before? (Chap­ter 11, Quadru­ple Your IQ, Your Oxy­gen Mask First).
  • They don’t have to be an expert in your spe­cif­ic indus­try, but have worked with lots of peo­ple like you, at the stage that you’re at, and have huge pat­tern recognition.
  • Have they had for­mal coach training?
• How many long-term clients do they have?
• Are they pre­pared to chal­lenge and risk upset­ting me, with my best inter­ests at heart?

Try Before you Buy

Any coach worth their salt will offer a few con­ver­sa­tions up front to see how you’ll work togeth­er. This is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for one-on-one coaching.

We under­stand that lead­er­ship and growth is not an easy jour­ney. It’s tough and painful — and can be much smoother in part­ner­ship with the right coach.

The Chal­lenge

• If you’re not cur­rent­ly work­ing with a coach, men­tor or some­one who helps you to con­tin­ue to learn and grow, what would you ben­e­fit the most from doing so and how can you find them?
• If you are, con­grat­u­la­tions! Now, what can you do to make your time with that per­son even more valuable?

Click here to lis­ten more on find­ing a coach on my recent pod­cast The Growth Whisperers.